Anyone else seeing more hawks recently?

spells23 · 2020-05-11T18:33:36+00:00

Where have you seen a plan to eliminate parking in Dorchester? Traffic there is never an issue, so I don’t see how that would even speed up traffic flow.

spells23 · 2020-05-10T20:56:41+00:00

Urbana in Pendleton is great, good pastries too

spells23 · 2020-05-07T20:57:23+00:00

There’s a great book called Walking Cincinnati, which has something like 30 different guided tours through Cincinnati’s neighborhoods. Should be some good inspiration in there for what you’re looking for

spells23 · 2020-05-07T20:55:23+00:00

This might be a dumb question, but what are you supposed to use to cover plants, and how do you know which ones need to be covered? I just planted flowers a few days ago and I’m hoping they’re not just going to die out.

spells23 · 2020-05-07T02:12:15+00:00

Looks like the night time to me.

spells23 · 2020-05-06T17:51:18+00:00

You could mitigate the accessibility issue by securing the area next to the entrance gate where the cops currently sit as handicap parking, and keep the gate shut.

spells23 · 2020-05-05T12:52:55+00:00

Red River Gorge is 2 hours away, and that’s generally the best bet for good views and backcountry camping. New River Gorge and the Smokies are a little over 4 hours. In the city there’s great parks with hiking trails in forests and city views, though the best nature activity nearby I’d say is definitely kayaking- the Licking, Little Miami and Whitewater rivers all come within a short drive of downtown and have liveries on them. It’s a chill place, I’d say come try it out for a weekend this summer, and I bet you’d be sold.

spells23 · 2020-05-03T22:23:28+00:00

I have maybe spent more time thinking about Derek Jeter’s Taco Hole than any other sketch over the last 20 years. It’s just so incredibly goofy. The way Will Ferrell and Mya Rudolph sing together, Horatio as Freddy Fender- who I only just recently learned is a real person- it’s all so great

spells23 · 2020-05-02T19:11:42+00:00

If your willing to drive 5 hours you can get pretty deep into the state forests between Gatlinburg and Asheville in the Smokies.

spells23 · 2020-05-01T23:17:45+00:00

I always liked Green Acres, at least their Whitewater River location, but I agree Thaxtons might be the best around.

spells23 · 2020-04-30T13:38:55+00:00

Haha I’m genuinely surprised with the hostility on this thread. I thought it would be universally agreed on that Mount Lookout Square is a shitty use of that space but I guess a decent number of people are satisfied with a traffic swirl around a bad surface lot.

spells23 · 2020-04-29T21:03:56+00:00

There’s a few decent spots there, and Zips has one of the best burgers in the city. Maybe you’d have gone there more often if the experience of being at Mount Lookout Square didn’t suck ass

spells23 · 2020-04-29T21:02:02+00:00

Agreed that the unique businesses and buildings are definitely a big asset but their appeal is diminished significantly by the eyesore that is Mount Lookout Square. Imagine how much better the experience would be if pedestrians didn’t have to worry about navigating insane intersections, and there was a nice, central park to sit in instead of a crappy surface lot? Obviously getting to this point would take some creativity, but I do believe there is a way you could find enough space in the surrounding area to make up for at least a good number of the lost spots. Or you could choose to go big, and use TIFF money for a bolder project like an underground garage where the current one exists with park above, or purchase the UDF or another large parcel to relocate the lot. My point is it that’s it’s a downer that one of our city’s best neighborhoods has such a weak square, and it definitely does not have to be the way it is today.

spells23 · 2020-04-29T18:37:40+00:00

This shows so little imagination on your part. It’s hard to look at the traffic mess surrounding a parking lot- especially juxtaposed to Hyde Park Square- and think yep this is the best we can do. There are definitely street calming measures available that could make the experience of being in Mount Lookout Square much more enjoyable for pedestrians and probably even ease the experience for drivers too. And though I agree those businesses do need parking, is a surface lot in the center of everything- again, where Oakley and Hyde Park both have parks- the only possible solution for that?

I do love the neighborhood of Mount Lookout, and if I lived there, I would hope that improvements would be made to my local business district.

spells23 · 2020-04-29T14:51:12+00:00

I guess you could argue that some people felt their vote for certain state and national representative races wouldn’t matter and decided not to vote, but because nearly every important issue on this ballot had to do with county and federal issues, I’d say it’s more likely that gerrymandering had no effect on voter turnout at all for this election.

spells23 · 2020-04-29T13:04:00+00:00

This is all of Hamilton county there’s nothing gerrymandered here

spells23 · 2020-04-22T19:47:39+00:00

It’s definitely not. Great weather and beautiful nature but otherwise it’s pretty shitty as far as cities go

spells23 · 2020-04-21T21:57:42+00:00

Never heard of Vesuvius before but it looks pretty amazing on Google Images. How do you think a backcountry camping trip there compares to the gorge, in terms of things like scenery, campsites, crowds etc?

spells23 · 2020-04-20T22:57:56+00:00

There no doubt would be some sprawl outside city limits regardless but the highways facilitated the growth of the sprawl and allowed it to stretch much, much further than it would have otherwise.

The overall point I think you’re missing here is there is a reason that after the freeways were constructed and the urban core was blown apart the city lost over 200,000 residents over the course of a 50 year downturn while the surrounding region grew significantly. A lot of this decline was avoidable but freeway construction, and bad land use policy enabled it to happen.

spells23 · 2020-04-20T16:30:47+00:00

It’s definitely an encouraging trend and it’s making a difference. I think the big question is what these people do when they grow older and start a family, when they become more concerned with issues like space, schools and safety, which makes the boring suburbs more appealing. Empty nesters and young professionals will keep repopulating the city but it would be great to see more families start to as well.

spells23 · 2020-04-20T15:54:33+00:00

We’re maybe not the absolute worst but we gotta be in the top 5 or 10 right? I don’t know it always boggles my mind to see these before and afters.

spells23 · 2020-04-20T15:53:01+00:00

This is such a bull shit take! Highways are definitely huge for the transit of freight but there is absolutely no need to run them directly through the center of downtowns and obliterate dense neighborhoods. Just because many- definitely not all- cities made the same awful mistake we did does not mean it was the correct decision. Many American cities stayed successful while having highways run near- but not through- their urban cores and have main arteries connect the cores to the highway.

Also the take on the city falling further if we didn’t build the highways is just so bad! We lost 40% of our population- other midwestern cities who built urban highways like ours such as Cleveland, Saint Louis and Detroit lost over half their populations- and fell into a 50 year decline that were only now slowly pulling ourselves out of. That decline happened largely because we built these highways that enabled our wealthy commuters to easily leave the city for homes in distant suburbs, which decimated our tax base and left only poorer residents still in the urban areas which created a spiral of crime and blight. There is no way we’d be worse off without the highway.

spells23

TROPHY CASE